


Solid Freaking Gold

by Caffeinated_Owlbear



Series: Crush [3]
Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: (Yes We're All Shocked That Jack Has a Name Kink), Accidental Death Threat (That Does Not Result in Sex), Consensual Sex, Explicit Consent, F/M, Flirting, Hyperion CEO Handsome Jack (Borderlands), Hyperion Corporate Shenanigans, I Know It Says OC But That's What Meg Is Basically, Jack Being an Idiot, Jack being Jack, Mostly Sane Anyway Because They're Both Bonkers, Non-Expicit Sex, Office Sex, Porn with Feelings, Rarepair, Safe Sane and Consensual, Sexual Tension, Smut, Timeline In Which Meg Will Be Jack's Second Wife, name kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:46:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24778618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caffeinated_Owlbear/pseuds/Caffeinated_Owlbear
Summary: Continuing directly fromRegal, in which Jack and Meg had a weird moment in his office. Good weird? Bad weird? Let's find out...===“My office. An hour ago. The fuck was that?”“I don’t know what that was, Jack. I don’t – fucking – know! But I meant it. Every bit of it.”There it is. Well, no, not yet, this still isn’t the voice he heard back in his office, when he held her face in his hand and felt her breath on his fingers as she said his name like a goddamn prayer, but the feeling behind it… yeah, that’s the one.
Relationships: Handsome Jack (Borderlands)/Original Female Character(s), Handsome Jack/Meg (Borderlands)
Series: Crush [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1792126
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	1. Your Terms or Mine

**Author's Note:**

> Jack may be a bit confused about what's going on - but you don't have to be! Just go and read [Regal](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24710794), that'll make it very clear. That fic also comes with more detailed notes on my reasoning behind the Jack/Meg ship.
> 
> Short version:  
> \- this is set somewhere between TPS and BL2;  
> \- Meg is gonna be the second wife mentioned in Tales  
> \- Jack's in his mid-to-late 40's, Meg in her late 30's

* * *

Jack pushes the double doors of his office open and stalks down the long corridor that leads to the elevator, through the reception area. He doesn’t see Meg at her desk, but her lamp is on, her suit jacket hangs on the back of her chair, and there’s a half-empty mug on her desk. That last bit’s weird; he’s never seen Meg abandon a coffee halfway. And this one _is_ abandoned: the mug’s not steaming, and his PA is secretly a lava monster who won’t touch a drink unless it can give a normal human second-degree burns. Jack learned that the hard way, that one time when he grabbed her coffee order from the tray by mistake.

He looks around the reception area. A bunch of armchairs, two coffee tables, a handful of pillars disguised as plants (plants disguised as pillars?), zero PAs.

“Meg?”

“Southeast corner,” comes her voice from, indeed, the southeast corner. Jack doesn’t have a visual on her from where he stands; one of the plant-pillar hybrids blocks his line of sight. He walks over.

Meg’s propping up a pane of glass with her shoulder. She’s got a whiskey tumbler in one hand, an ECHO tablet stylus in the other, and no actual tablet anywhere on her person. The stylus is balanced between her index and middle finger, tapping softly against her hand as she rocks it back and forth like a tiny glass pendulum. She stops when Jack comes into her view.

“I’m leaving for the day,” he announces.

She nods. “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Why’re you here, anyway? You said you were leaving once done with my schedule. That was, like, an hour ago.”

“Yeah.” The stylus starts rocking in her fingers again, faster this time. “I got caught up… processing the updates.”

“Anything I need to know about?”

“No. Everything’s in order.” The stylus becomes a blur. Jack grabs it from her hand and sticks it into the nearest piece of shrubchitecture.

She follows his movement with her eyes, but doesn’t try to stop him, nor to retrieve the thing. Good. The fidgeting was getting annoying as fuck.

“So…” she ventures when he doesn’t say anything. “Good night?”

Jack takes half a step forward, pressing his palm to the window next to where her shoulder is resting against the glass. “Are you kicking me out of my own office, Megs?”

“You always said that this room here was _my_ office.”

“Yeah, sure…” He smiles, very slowly, leaning into her space, plucks the whiskey glass out of her hand and tosses it aside; it hits some unseen piece of furniture with a satisfying smash. “But it’s still part of _my_ kingdom.”

“That’s… true.” She doesn’t flinch away from him, but she doesn’t move closer, either. Her voice is quiet, but with none of that… whatever that was, back at his office. Too intense to be flirting, too restrained to be passion, too true to be a compliment, and she didn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know, but the way she said it, with such– yes, conviction, that’s the one, the way she said it… Well, it was the hottest fucking thing he’d heard in a while, and he wants to hear it again. _That_ voice. That _conviction_. Not… whatever this is.

“Okay, sweetheart…” Jack steps around Meg, presses both hands on the glass either side of her, leans closer so she has no choice but to face him and flatten herself against the window. “I’m not sure if you understand what’s happening here, so in the interests of fairness, I’m gonna be real patient for about thirty seconds.”

She watches him, silently.

“My office. An hour ago. The _fuck_ was that?”

Meg is silent, like she _wants_ to waste her thirty seconds of grace. Then…

“I’m sorry, Jack. I know I shouldn’t have done that.”

He could actually kill her right now. Of all the things to say, that’s what she’s going for? And– what, NO, of all the times, she chooses this time to fucking _look away_ from him?

Jack wants to grab her, make her look at him, make her face him. Those thirty seconds _must_ be up by now.

“Look at me,” he snarls. She looks. “I’m not looking for a goddamn apology! I asked you a question. Answer. Now. Don’t make me repeat myself.”

“I don’t know what that was, Jack. I don’t – fucking – know!” She throws her hands up like she’s going to try and push him away, then lets them drop by her sides. “But I meant it. Every bit of it.”

There it is. Well, no, not yet, this still isn’t the voice he heard back in his office, when he held her face in his hand and felt her breath on his fingers as she said his name like a goddamn prayer, but the feeling behind it… yeah, that’s the one.

Jack breathes out through his nose, tilts his head to the side, feels a smile coming on and lets it into the corner of his mouth. He wants her to keep talking. He’s gonna tell her to keep talking, till she sounds just like she did back then, and then some more, and then he’s gonna fuck her within an inch of her life right up against this window. See what she sounds like then, too.

The words ‘go on, sugar’ have already formed in his mouth when he stops himself. Hang on. Hang on a goddamn moment. It’s not like Jack to doubt himself, but _is_ it possible he’s letting his dick do a bit too much of the thinking right now? ‘Cause Meg’s little display in his office, that was too fucking perfect by half, and then she _left_ , and then he _followed_ her; sure, it was an hour later, and sure, he had to walk through the reception to get to the elevator anyway, but he _knows_ he was hoping she’d still be out here, and when she wasn’t at her desk, he went _looking_ _for her_ , and she didn’t even look happy to see him.

Fuck. Has he let himself be played that easily? One goddamn line (however perfect it was, fuck, he _needs_ to hear her say that again, no, _shut up_ , this is exactly what the problem is), and he’s running after her, practically begging for more? Sh’yeah, some king that’d make him.

“Jack?..”

He doesn’t let himself think about the way his name sounds in Meg’s mouth, about all the things that makes him want to _do_ to Meg’s mouth _._

He drags his eyes upwards, to meet hers.

“Are you _sure_ that you meant it? Are you _absolutely_ sure? ’Cause if that, back there”–Jack nods towards his office– “was just you jerking me around…” He keeps Meg pressed against the glass, his hands either side of her closing in till his thumbs brush her shoulders. “I am going to _kill_ you. And it will be slow. I will put you in my airlock, but I’m not gonna vent it, oh no. I will suck the air out of it, and _watch_ you suffocate. You get what I’m saying, _sweetheart_?”

He watches her as she watches him. Her eyes dart to the side and down, like she’s working something out. Jack grits his teeth. What’s there to work out? He was perfectly fucking clear. All he wants is a straight answer.

“I think so,” says Meg. There’s a tremor in her voice. He likes that. What she says next, he likes less. “You’re saying that I need to somehow convince you I was for real, back there… or you’ll kill me.”

It takes him a moment to hear it.

SHIT.

This isn’t what he meant. Except he meant every word of it. If she was trying to play him back there, he _would_ watch her gasp on nothing, ‘cause you don’t get to play Jack and live. But the way she says it, it also sounds like he said he was gonna kill her if she didn’t fuck him. And uh, yeah, he said as much. And that, _that_ isn’t what he meant. ‘Cause that’d make him fucking pathetic.

SHIT.

“So?” he pushes. Like it even matters what she says. There’s no way for him to know the truth now. There’s nothing anyone can say or do to fix this. Might as well destroy this the rest of the way. No salvage, no scrap, done here, burn it all down, start anew.

“I’m sorry, Jack,” she says, and Jack’s heart drops into a bottomless pit. So that’s the way it’s going down. Fuck. He’s gonna miss Meg. He’s gonna miss her really fucking much.

“You’re sorry ‘cause?..” How bad would it be if he went back on his word? No airlocks, no screaming, no gasping, just the gun. Here, now, quick, done, walk out, make a call, make sure her body’s not here by morning.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t accept those terms.”

There are so many things Jack wants to do in that moment.

He wants to give her forty-nine percent of Hyperion and make her Vice President, because apparently, his PA has more brains and more balls than anyone else on Helios, save Jack himself.

He wants to kill her, because she has just solved a problem he thought impossible, and he can’t be having that.

He wants to kiss her, because– seriously, have you been paying ANY fucking attention?

Jack does none of that. For now. He pins her eyes with his and speaks. Two words, through gritted teeth.

“Name. Yours.”

Meg straightens her back, squares her shoulders, juts her chin out. With her still pressed up against the glass, Jack’s arms either side of her, and an endless vacuum of space behind her, it’s not much of a power pose, but, hmm, B+ for effort.

“Never insult me like this ever… fucking… again.”

She grabs the lapels of his jacket with both hands and yanks him towards her. Her lips come up to meet Jack’s mouth, hard. It’s less of a kiss, more of a car crash, and over before he can respond.

Then she’s glaring up at him, her chest heaving with shallow breaths, and he feels her grip on his clothes loosening as her palms flatten against his chest, and grabs her wrists before she pushes him away.

“Deal,” he snarls, and goes straight for her mouth again.

It still wouldn’t be considered a kiss by most people. A series of attacks on each other’s lips, maybe. And it’s not like he doesn’t _know_ how to kiss nice and slow, ‘cause Jack can kiss however the hell you can imagine, if whatever the hell you’re imagining is what he feels like doing at the time. But this, here, now, sure as hell ain’t the time for _slow_ , and sure as death ain’t the time for _nice_.

Besides, he thinks as he catches her bottom lip between his teeth, she started it. So she’d better keep up.

Meg pulls one of her wrists from his grasp for long enough and hard enough that he lets go, just to see what happens. The hand ends up on the back of his neck, slipping under his collar and FUCK, her fingers are cold. Jack relaxes his grip on her other wrist just enough to stop cutting off circulation; it’d be a fucking shame to render her hands useless this early, he wants to know what else she’s planning to do with them. Moments later, he forgets about that plan, using his now-free hand to press between her shoulder blades, crushing their upper bodies together, both their hands caught in between.

Eventually, just as violently as they’d crashed into each other, they break apart, each stumbling a half-step backwards. Meg’s back hits the window again. Jack’s heel hits something he kicks away without looking.

Something occurs to him.

“So what’d I say that was insulting, exactly?”

Meg gives him a look he’s never seen on her face before, a weird mix of annoyance and disbelief. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Serious as a heart attack, babe.” One of which he’ll probably have by the end of this evening, with the amount of curve balls this ridiculous woman is throwing him.

“Okay.” Meg pinches the bridge of her nose, looks away, opens and closes her fist a few times. Then she meets his eye again. “You thought that I had tried to play you. Me. Someone who works by your side sixty hours a week, someone whose job description includes calling people into your office for summary execution, someone who’s looked into the mortally terrified eyes of dozens of people as I would press the intercom button and say, professional _as all fuck_ , ‘Mr. Handsome Jack, sir, your three o’clock is here’, and watch those people walk through those doors, fully knowing they’re not walking out…”

She pauses to take a breath. Jack realizes that at some point during her tirade, he’d started holding his.

“So… yes. You may not have said the words, but you called me a total, irredeemable idiot, to my face. Because you suggested that having that knowledge, having that experience, I would try and play games with Handsome – Goddamn – Jack.”

Jack stands mutely for a moment, a smile spreading on his face.

“Ho… ly… shit!” He chokes on a laugh. “Starting tomorrow, you can add ‘writing my speeches’ to that job description of yours. That was… fricking awesome.”

Meg crosses her arms. “That’s… not what the deal was.”

“Are you _seriously_ fishing for more compliments right now? Gahd.” Jack rolls his eyes. “Okay. You’re not an idiot. You’re good at your job. You’re pretty fucking hot. How ‘bout that?”

“That’s pretty good.” She smiles. “Still not the deal we made, though.”

“Ugh, _fine_ , if you’re gonna be such a fricking _lawyer_ about it…” Jack clears his throat. “I, Handsome Jack, President and CEO of Hyperion, the Hero of Pandora, all-round super-awesome, amazing, incredibly good-looking guy with whom you made out, like, a moment ago, give you my word, as all of the aforementioned, that I will never insult you specifically by suggesting you’re a total, irredeemable idiot, or calling you that to your face. How’s that, that doing it for ya?”

“That was beautiful. Thank you, Jack.” Meg separates herself from the window, rolls her shoulders. “Damn, this glass is way too cold to have your back against it for this long.” She walks past Jack and towards her desk, stepping around the shards of the broken whiskey glass and plucking the stylus from the shrub along the way. Jack’s thoughts whiplash straight back to his earlier plans vis-a-vis Meg and that glass and Meg’s back against that glass, and he’s about to grab her arm and yank her right back to him when another thought crashes in, with thoroughly unsettling implications.

He stalks after Meg. “So what am _I_ getting out of this deal?”

“What did you _say_ you wanted?”

Jack’s blood freezes in his veins. He… didn’t. He just accepted the first terms she gave him, zero negotiation, zero anything, and lunged at her mouth like it was oxygen to a man who’d just sprinted halfway across Triton Flats on an empty Oz kit, and FUCK, if Jack’s gonna kill someone for playing him, he’s gonna have to march his own ass into the airlock because Jack just fucking played himself.

He watches anger rise in his chest, and shifts it to the side: not dissipated, not released, just waiting its turn. And its turn will come, and someone close by, some time soon, is gonna find themselves having a real bad time. But Jack’s gonna have himself a real good time, first.

Jack grabs Meg’s wrist and spins her around to face him. “What I want... wasn’t part of our deal.” He bares his teeth at her. “But something tells me I’m getting it anyway.”

She closes the gap between them, stopping close enough that he needs to look down to look her in the face, but short of physical contact aside from his hand around her wrist.

“Yes.” She’s not smiling, but her voice is low and even and– yes, that’s what he’s been looking for, and now he knows, he finally knows for sure he had not been imagining it, not embellishing it in his non-stop replay of her talking to him in his office.

Jack reaches for her chin, just like back there, but she tilts her head up before his fingers make contact. He slides his hand along the side of Meg’s jaw, her neck, to the back of her head. Her hair catches on the tip of his thumb.

“Yes… what?” he growls. That’s when she smiles, and he breathes in around his teeth, because _yes_ , she knows exactly what he’s after, and she’s gonna do it now, and this is gonna be fucking glorious, and–

“Yes, Jack.”

Fuck.

Yes.


	2. Inferior Furniture Options

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on this mess.  
>  _  
> “What I want... wasn’t part of our deal. But something tells me I’m getting it anyway.”_
> 
> _“Yes.”_
> 
> _Jack reaches for her chin._
> 
> _“Yes… what?” he growls. That’s when she smiles, and he breathes in around his teeth, because yes, she knows exactly what he’s after, and she’s gonna do it now, and this is gonna be fucking glorious, and–_
> 
> _“Yes, Jack.”_
> 
> _Fuck._
> 
> _Yes._

Jack wrenches Meg’s whole body up and flush against him, going in for the kiss so fast and hard that Jack’s own lips are crushed against her teeth. He walks her backward, not caring if she stumbles along the way, his mouth all the while demanding a response from hers, until it occurs to Jack she might not have any room in which to give it. He slows down just that little bit, eases off just a fraction, and the payoff is instant, he can feel Meg’s tongue on his lips now, can taste the coffee and whiskey on hers.

They reach Meg’s desk, and Jack breaks the kiss to hoist her up on the edge, and she pulls him back in, one hand grabbing his jacket, the other behind his neck, and he shudders and breathes a muffled curse into the kiss because seriously, how can someone who drinks boiling coffee twenty-four seven have freaking icicles for hands? She takes his response for encouragement, sliding her fingers up into his hair at the back, and okay, that one’s not so bad.

Jack pulls Meg’s shirt collar open and nips at her neck, shoving stuff off the desk with his free hand to give them more room. Papers, pen cups, ECHO pad–

“WAIT!” Meg shrieks, so loud he actually jumps. The fuck?

“What?” Jack growls into her ear. “If you were gonna ask for no hickeys, you’re fresh outta luck, sugar. And late.” He punctuates his point with a toothy kiss to her shoulder, pushes more stuff off the desk: inbox, intercom panel–

Meg’s hand darts out and grabs the next thing he was gonna shove to the floor, a weird lumpy plant in a black glazed pot. “Don’t!.. Don’t break that.”

Jack looks at the plant. Then at Meg. Then at the plant again.

“Is it one of those jungle creepers from Pandora? Shoots toxins when attacked?”

“No. It’s my ficus. Let me just…” She wriggles out of his grasp. Jack’s stunned enough to actually let her. He watches her hop down to the floor, pick up the pot with both hands, and carry it to one of the coffee tables. Then she returns to the desk, shoves the few remaining items off of it and climbs back on.

“What?” she asks Jack when, a good twenty seconds later, he’s still watching her. He’s sat himself in her chair by now, head propped up on his hand.

“You’re… actually nuts, aren’t you.” He raises his finger when she opens her mouth to respond. “That wasn’t a question.” He runs his hand through his hair. “Ficus. Holy fricking… ficus,” he repeats, as if that might make it more sense, somehow.

“We can talk about it some time, if you like.” Meg kicks off one of her shoes and balances her toes on his knee. “It sounds like it’s really weighing on your mind.”

“Yeah. Make a note of it,” Jack says, then grips her ankle just to make sure she doesn’t  _ actually  _ run off to make a note. When she doesn’t, he slides his hand up her leg, past her knee, catching the hem of her skirt on the way. His fingers find skin instead of nylon earlier than expected, and he turns in the chair to push Meg’s skirt above her hips on both sides. Jack grins up at her.

“Stockings? HOT.”

“I hate tights.”

“Oh  _ god _ , tell me you’ve got one of those belt things that...” He yanks her skirt up all the way to her waist and groans. “Dammit!”

“Ah, this is  _ exactly  _ like I always imagined this moment,” Meg says, voice dripping with mock wistfulness. “Me, sitting there half-naked. You, looking thoroughly disappointed.”

“Did your  _ ficus  _ figure in that fantasy of yours? ‘Cause lemme tell you, babe, nothing gives me a bigger boner than being prioritized below a fricking potted plant.” Jack leans to the back of the chair, arms crossed. If she thinks she can flip him on and off like a goddamn switch–

“Come on, Jack...” She runs her toes up the inside of his leg, knee to thigh.

“Yeah, no. You’ve killed the mood and vented its ashes into space, sugar. You’re gonna have to do better than ‘come on, Jack’ and some footsie,” he grumbles. (Lies.)

“Okay…” Meg pushes a desk drawer open with her toe. Sitting inside the drawer is a handbag. Meg hooks a foot through the handle, lifts the bag out, then crosses ankle over knee until the bag is in her hands. Jack watches the acrobatics with a small amount of interest.

Meg’s hand disappears inside the bag. It reappears a few seconds later, with a silver foil packet between her index and middle fingers. With her other hand, she picks up the bag, holds it over the side of the desk by the corner, not handle, and lets the contents tip on the floor, before letting go of the bag itself.

“How am I doing, Jack?” 

Good question. Sitting in front of him like that, with her skirt still hiked up around her waist, her hair mussed up, a fresh hickey on her neck, a freaking condom between her fingers and that  _ smile _ she’s giving him, hmm, how  _ is  _ she doing, how indeed, yeah, well,  _ holy freaking nutballs _ , that’s how,  _ this is the fucking hottest thing ever _ , that’s how, and  _ why isn’t he inside her already _ , that’s how.

“I’d say you’re moving in the right direction, sweetheart,” says Jack.

“Alright.” Meg slips the packet into her cleavage, slides off the edge of the desk and straddles Jack’s lap in one smooth motion. He hates how fast his hands land on her bare hips.

He grins. “What, you gonna give me a lap dance or something?” Well, he’s not gonna turn it down.

“No.” She leans against Jack, her chin on his shoulder, her lips brushing his ear. “I thought that, now that I brought it up, maybe you’d like to know how I _ actually _ imagined this moment. Because you _ know _ I’ve imagined it.”

“’Course you have.” He never doubted that. Hearing her _ say _ she has, though, that… yeah, that’s  _ definitely  _ another step in the right direction. “Tell me all about it.”

Jack can feel her smile against his skin. Then she tells him all about it, the full unabridged account of how she imagined Megan Clarke and Handsome Jack having ridiculously hot sex for the first of many times, and it’s detailed enough that he knows she’s not making it up on the spot, she’s  _ thought _ about it, she’s run it through her mind over and over, and how many times would she have fantasized about him while sitting at this very desk, hmm, then get snapped back to reality by the intercom and have to walk into his office, looking and sounding all professional and shit, with the thoughts of him fucking her still at the front of her mind?..

As he listens, Jack slides his hands under Meg’s shirt, up her sides and around the back, looking for the bra clasp and coming up empty. Nothing at the front, either. Actually kinda curious now, he works her shirt open and off her shoulders, and– is she freaking kidding him with a freaking  _ sports bra? _ Jack bites back a comment on her inexplicable fashion choices ‘cause in the story Meg’s telling him, it sounds like he’s about to get a blowjob right in his office chair, and he’s this close to cutting the telling short to bring that particular fantasy to life, inferior furniture options and all. But he’s also weirdly, ridiculously invested in hearing the next part, as directed by Meg’s delightfully and, if he’s honest,  _ shockingly  _ filthy mind (it’s always the quiet ones, they say, and they’re right).

There’s only so much a man can take, though, even a man like Jack. Their change of state is instantaneous. One moment, Meg is whispering into his ear and he’s taking her in with every ounce of attention, his hands roaming her body almost lazily; the next, her ass is back on the desk, and Jack’s in front of her, and it takes them a moment to get bits of clothes out of the way, and a shorter moment to rip open a foil packet, and then a longer,  _ infuriating _ moment to get all the angles right. Jack swears under his breath and Meg soon joins him, because what the actual fuck, this is ridiculous, come the  _ fuck  _ on, why would this be so fricking–

Ah. There. Yeah. That works.

He spares a second’s glance at Meg. She’s biting her lip. She sees him looking. She nods a fraction.

That’s it. That’s the extent of how careful Jack’s willing to be.

  
  


* * *

Even with all the angles being right, or passable, anyway, there’s no finesse to what they’re doing. It’s rough. It’s selfish. It borders on desperate.

Jack’s hand is grabbing one of Meg’s legs under the knee. Meg’s hands are grabbing fistfuls of Jack’s hair and jacket.

Their verbal push-and-pull was layered tension, promise and payoff. Their kissing was a battle for dominance, however foregone its conclusion. This, here, now, is like having fallen through the ice: both fighting to the surface, both fighting for air, neither fighting the other one, but neither caring if the other goes under, either.

Jack braces a hand on the desk partition for support. Meg braces a foot on the chair for leverage.

It’s absolutely nothing like either of them imagined when they imagined doing this with each other. It’s so much fucking better.

  
  


* * *

“Jack-”

Even now, the sound of his name in her mouth is un-fucking-believable. He will never,  _ never _ get tired of hearing her say it. Especially when the name’s caught between the breaths and moans and–

“Jack- Fuck, Jack, wait-”

Wait? No, he doesn’t think he’s gonna. If you think that time and tide wait for no-one, well, those suckers have infinite patience compared to Jack right now, not when he’s so fucking close, not when he’s got Meg wrapped all around him, her breath scorching his neck (told you she’s a lava monster), her heel pressed into the small of his back, her–

“JACK!”

–her fist slamming into his shoulder with enough force to make him stop. And lean back. Just enough. To look. At her face.

“WHAT.”

“Give me – a second – goddammit.”

She glares at him with enough fury to incinerate a lesser man. Jack’s not a lesser man, so he just glares back.

Meg leans back a fraction, one of her hands letting go of Jack’s hair and snaking between their bodies. Go figure, he never noticed she was left-handed. That thought distracts him for a moment.

Then Jack leans his forehead on her overheated shoulder, the bra strap digging into his skin, and gives her a second, goddammit. Meg’s hand between them isn’t making it any easier.

Whole  _ five  _ seconds, goddammit. He deserves another statue for every single freaking one of them.

Probably up to seven, now. Seven statues. Solid fucking gold.

Eigh- no, that’s it.

“Time’s up,” he growls into her ear. She says or moans something in response. He doesn’t catch it.

Some time later, they’re in a heap on Meg’s desk, Meg on her back, Jack slumped on top of her. Note to self, thinks Jack, get his PA a bigger fucking desk. Hah. ‘Fucking desk’. He chokes out a laugh.

“We’re totally doing it in my office next time,” he informs Meg.

“Next time?” she asks, not opening her eyes.

Jack lifts himself enough to look down at her. Did she just fucking say what he thought she–

“Your office. Couch. By the fireplace,” Meg continues, eyes still closed. Like nothing happened. Like she didn’t just make it sound like– Jack ejects the thought from his mind. Not important.

“My office. My desk. I face the window.”

“Your desk, but I face the window.”

“My desk… and we  _ both  _ face the window.”

“Hmm…” Meg looks up at him, a lazy smile on her lips. Then she closes her eyes again. “Deal.”

Jack grins to himself. Just like he thought. That absolute fucking fiasco of their deal earlier, either that  _ was  _ a fluke, or Meg can only negotiate worth a damn when her life’s on the line. Good. For a second there, she almost had him worried.

He pushes himself up to sit on the edge of the desk. Behind him, Meg sits up and drapes an arm over his shoulder. There's a touch of lips on Jack's neck. Then-

“What the...”

Jack spins his head around to look at Meg. There’s a silent, almost innocent question in her eyes, but from the way her mouth curls, he can tell she already knows the answer.

He stands up and turns around to face her properly, wrapping his fingers around the side of her jaw.

“Did you just fucking bite me?”

She bares her teeth at him. “You fucking bit me first.”

Jack brushes Meg’s lips with his thumb and tilts his eyes to the red mark on her skin, where her neck meets the shoulder. Yeah, he did.

“More than once,” she adds.

“Yeah, I did. But…” Jack turns her face to one side, tightening his grip on her jaw when she offers a small fraction of resistance. “ _ I  _ can do that.”

He feels her chest move as he leans in quickly and grazes her collarbone with his teeth before straightening out again to looking down at her.

“You…” Jack shifts his grip again, his hand pressed against Meg’s lips now. “Can’t.”

For a moment, she does nothing, her grey eyes taking him in and not giving anything back. Jack almost expects her to bite him again. Jack kinda, almost, definitely, really wants her to.

She doesn’t, but he feels her lips move against his hand.

“Mhh-mm whh hmm.”

“You were saying?” Jack lifts his fingers to let her speak.

“Tell me what else I can’t do, Jack.” Meg smiles up at him, sweeter than poison. “Just tell me…” Her smile sharpens at the edges. “And I’ll never,  _ ever _ do that again.”

Holy freaking nutballs.

“Just say the word, Jack.”

Jack crushes his mouth onto hers before she can continue. He doesn’t have any words to say at the moment.

Later, he tells himself, he’ll give some actual thought to her question. Make a list, or something. Not too long, though. He’d like to keep his options open.

**Author's Note:**

> If you would like an insight into the depth of Meg's feelings for Jack, you can't go wrong with [this specific version of Crush by Garbage.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shb_bxglEKk)


End file.
